Another request for M4 scheduling advice.

[BoogieGnome]

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Hi everyone, I recently found out that I have one of the early scheduling appointments for my 4th year, which means that I'll most likely get whatever I want, but don't really have a good idea of what I want.

I was planning on spending the first block of summer studying for and finishing the Step 2 CS/CK and our required OSCE's; all of which have to be done by September 30th.

From there, I plan on doing an anesthesiology elective at my home institution from 8/3 - 8/28.

From about the middle of my 1st year until early 3rd year, ENT was my #1 choice. I still want to give it a chance, so I'm planning on an ENT elective (also at my home institution) from 8/31 - 9/25. A couple of the ENT docs have known me since 1st year; would getting a letter from one of them would be beneficial for Anesthesiology (assuming ENT doesn't recover it's prior standing with me)? Maybe this will be a moot point, if I have enough good letters by 9/1 when ERAS opens.

Here's where things are getting murky for me. I'm not sure that I see a huge benefit to doing an away rotation; Although my 3rd year grades are rather average so far, I did well on the step 1 (245), so I'm not terribly worried about getting enough interviews. Should I go ahead and do one? The options I see for 9/28-10/23 include doing an away rotation, SICU, Cardiology, Pulmonology, or just something totally different. I'll have to do my required emergency rotation after this, so I'm a little wary of doing something too intense here...

After EM, it's interview season, then some other required rotations (Rehab, Neurology) and electives (Cards/Pulm/SICU, depending on what I haven't done earlier).

So what do you all think? Any suggestions would be very appreciated.

 

[psychbender]

Aways are nice, not only so the program can get to know you better, but so you can see how things are done away from your home institution, and at a place that you may want to go. So, I'd plan on an away rotation for October. November is your required EM month, so that won't be too bad, and you may even be able to get an interview or two in there. Take December off for interviews, then do whatever you are required to do for school for the remainder of the months. Be sure not to put anything too stressful at the end, because you'll likely start getting burned out sometime around February.

Regarding getting a letter from the ENTs, go for it. If they've known you off and on since first year, then one of them should be able to give you a good letter after you've worked with them a bit. In fact, since they have had an opportunity to see you grow and mature as a medical student over all these years, I would think that they could provide a better LOR than most of your other attendings, that you likely only worked with for 2-4 weeks.